Song of the Sea
by Lady Damyria
Summary: This is the story of Jullanar the mermaid, who found herself in the world above the sea and found love there as well.
1. Jullanar

**Song of the Sea**

**A/N This is the story of Jullanar the mermaid, who found herself in the world above the sea. The story was originally a part of the ArabianNights, which were the stories that Queen Shaharazad told her husband to extend her life and save the lives of the women inher husband's kingdom. I will try as hard as I can to keep the story as accurate as possible to the original story. And just to let you known, I do not own Jullanar or Salih or the King.I hope you will enjoy this fairy tale.**

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**Chapter One: Jullanar**

I will always remember those days spent in the open sea, gliding from place to place, swimming with a pod of dolphins, without a care in the world. My world was that of the sea and the things that lived in it. I was a part of the sea, and it was a part of me.

I was a mermaid.

My father was one of the seven kings of the seven seas, ruling over the Arabian Sea and the ocean a joining it. He himself was a merman, and as known for his swiftness and strength. He was a wise and fair man, and ruled his realm justly. At the tender age of 37 (37 might not seem young to you, but you age twice as fast as we do), he had taken the throne due to the untimely death of his older brother. 25 years later, he met my mother.

My mother was Diya, a woman of the sea. Some would call her a nymph, but she was a mermaid with indescribable beauty. The daughter of a noble, she was sought after by all the mermen in the kingdom, as well as by many others from surrounding kingdoms. My father first set eyes upon her when she had been caught in a fishing net. She tried to free herself, but kept getting caught, so that she was finally surrounded by the thick net. It was then that my father came to her rescue. It was love at first sight for them, and my mother was quickly married to my father, for in the sea, no one comes between true loves. My mother bore my father two children, Salih, my older brother, and I, whom they called Jullanar, the Princess of the sea.

None could compare to my beauty. I was by far the fairest maiden of the sea. All other mermaids looked like plain seaweed whenever I would enter a room. I had eyes the color of the azure sea and hair as black as the night sky. My skin was fair, so fair that I was almost the color of the white coral, bleached ivory by the sun. My brother was beautiful too, for we shared the same parents.

The day my father died will forever be etched into my mind. Though we were a people of myth, we were not immortal. We did live longer than a mortal though, but we could never escape death. Like the world above us, we suffered pain and grief.

I was 45 at the time, though in mortal years, it would me more like eighteen. We do age slower than you mortals. My father had lived to the age of 150, which would be about sixty in your years. For us, that was like dying in the height of your youth. Our people usually live to be at least 300 before we return to the sea foam that we are formed from.

Anyway, one day he was well, and the next, he was lying on his bed, struggling to stay alive. I remember sitting at his bedside, trying with all my might not to cry. I loved my father with all my heart, and seeing him like this tore my heart out. But I stayed, even though I felt the urge to run.

Then, he was gone.

I can still hear the mournful songs our people sang at the death of my father. But I could no hear them, for I was too lost in my sorrow. I could not possibly understand why my father was gone.

The oddity of his death assailed me, and I began to search for answers. I searched everywhere, considering the possibilities. I checked every book on poisons, for I knew that there was no sickness that could attack us people of the sea, for we were a strong people. Finally I reached the answer.

I discovered that my father had somehow ingested almonds. Unlike humans, we cannot eat almonds nor have the oil put on our skin, otherwise, we die. It contains a deadly poison for us merpeople. The symptoms are the loss of color to the skin and a raging fever that all but kills the mind.

Then, the king of a part of the sea to the south of us came, and usurped the throne from my brother, and married my mother. Suddenly, the pieces that I had uncovered over long hours of thinking and gathering as much information as I could, fell in to place. This foreign king wanted our kingdom and my mother as his wife, and me as the wife to his son, as I soon found out.

My brother, who would still remain heir to our own kingdom, supported the marriage fully, because he knew that that was the only way he was going to be able to keep his throne. It was then that I became angry at him.

You see, it wasn't that this merman was ill favored, but it was that he had a tendency to lust after many other mermaids. I didn't want to be the wife of a merman who would never be faithful to me. What I really wanted was the love my parents had, a love that was strong and would endure all time. Even though my mother was married to another man, her eyes no longer shone with the happiness that had flooded from them when my father had been alive. She still loved my father, though the sea had taken him back to her self.

My anger led to my downfall, and my story above the water.

**Please read and review!**


	2. The Road to Peril

**Song Of the Sea**

**Chapter 2: The Road to Peril**

"I won't marry him!" I screamed at my brother, Salih.

"You need to marry him," he shot back, furious that I would dare contradict him. The azure eyes that had always shone with warmth now became like the color of the sea as a furious storm whipped at the waves.

"But I will not have the faithful husband that is bound to me through the law and faithfulness!" I screamed back, tears sliding down my cheeks. Our heads were above the water, so my tears could be seen, and not swept away by the sea, which hated to see her children cry and always wiped our tears from our eyes.

"Cease your crying woman!" was the answer I got for my tears. Then, leaning in close so that our foreheads almost touched he said, "Don't think that your false tears will change my mind, because they won't."

I jerked back, never seeing this side of my brother before. Something had replaced the love that had once been there. It was something that was almost like greed, but not quite.

"Why do you not care for my heart brother?" I asked in total fear.

"Look at mother. The king cared not for her heart, but married her, and she is happy."

"But I would forever be cast aside by my husband because he is a man whose interests are in the most willing maid in the room."

"You will be a queen!" he reasoned. "Forget your heart and rule as a queen."

That was the last straw. Obviously, the love my brother once had for me was now lost in his zeal for his throne. I was now just a pawn to ensure his station.

"If you care not for me, then I will throw myself up onto the land and leave myself to the mercy of the men on the land. Surely they will care more for me than you do!" I screamed, wanting desperately to have the old Salih back, the one that would talk me out of committing this suicidal act.

"What do I care what you do?" he roared. "Let the humans take you, maybe you will be treated better than this merman!" He glared at me. "Go on, do it!"

Too hurt to think of the severity of the action, I swam through the moonlit water and headed to the nearby beach. Once there, I let the water carry my up onto the sand, exposing my silver tail. I felt my tail disappear and human legs appear, because I was able to walk on land when I chose to. There I wept, wanting my brother to come and drag me back into the water.

The tears streamed down my face as I waited. But I sat there the entire night, him having left me to the humans. I had refused to become the wife of the person who might usurp his throne and tie him to his kingdom, so he had left me, disowning me as his sister.

Dawn came slowly, the golden fingers of the sun slowly stretching over the horizon. It was beautiful, but I was too lost in my sorrow to notice it. Gradually, the golden warmth banished the icy chill of the night air, but it didn't take away the coldness I felt in my breast.

Too lost in my self pity, I never heard the footsteps that came up behind me. Before I knew it, a black sack had come over my head and my hands were tied. I screamed, but that was met with a fist to my temple, and after that I knew no more.


End file.
